CORRECTION:An earlier version of as
well as an earlier headline of this post incorrectly stated that Greg
Rayburn received a 300 percent raise as CEO of Hostess as the company
approached bankruptcy. Rayburn wasn't CEO of Hostess until after the
company filed for bankruptcy. The post also incorrectly stated that he
was paid a salary of up to $2,550,000 per year. His salary when he
joined the company was $100,000 per month, according to a company
spokesman.

Hostess could have ensured the Twinkie's survival simply by paying
the executives less, one of the unions organizing company workers
alleges.

The union says there’s another way the Twinkie-maker could have
avoided liquidating and laying off all of its 18,500 workers: by paying
the executives less money.

Hostess’ creditors accused the company in April
of manipulating executive salaries with the aim of getting around
bankruptcy compensation rules, the Wall Street Journal reported at the
time. In response, Rayburn announced he would cut his pay and that of
other executives to $1 until Dec. 31 or whenever Hostess came out of
bankruptcy.

That was after Hostess had already awarded the company's top four executives raises of between 75 and 80 percent, even though the company had already hired restructuring lawyers, according to the WSJ.

I'm sure the usual people will chime in defending execs' "rights" to be paid hundreds of times the compensation of a janitor or delivery boy, but the difference in compensation of executives and the rank and file is obscene, IMO.

Yes, it's wrong but it isn't going to change until public perception changes. For years the general public has been told that corporations are unfairly dealt with via taxes, etc., that the "job creators" deserve to keep more of what they work hard for; the list goes on but the basic idea is that they should be held in high esteem, given pretty much whatever they ask for via legislation because their "largesse" (creating jobs) is what allows the rest of us to thrive. People have, over time, completely bought into it often against their own interests. The result is that CEO and executive compensation is reaching astronomical porportions while worker wages are staying the same or being reduced. These days when a large company needs to cut costs they do so by reducing worker hours and/or pay while the compensation for those at the top stays the same or in some cases increases and the general public is all to accepting of it. How often have we seen, just here on this board, people going on about how those at the top shouldn't have to deal with a higher tax rate, they should be able to keep more of what they worked hard for. Then those same people will villify Union workers for striking against a wage reduction as though they don't have any right to expect to keep what their hard work earns simply because they are workers, not executives. The Unions and workers are seen as the greedy bad guys even though they are not asking for more than to be able to support their families.

Somehow over time, it has become acceptable for those at the top to increase their compensation even if it means reducing that of the workers in order to do so. At times it really does seem that rather than moving forward, society is moving backwards to a time when the corporate heads held all the power and the average worker was simply a pawn, easily replaced, in the game of wealth gathering.